Many people are looking for the long lost secret “pattern” of instant persuasion.
They usually ask questions like, “what can I say to get them to buy my product,” etc.
There’s endless books filled with closing techniques and supposedly magic formulas to triple your sales overnight.
However, what happens if you consider persuasion like a competitive sport? I know it’s not the best metaphor, because when we persuade, we’re always looking for win-win outcomes, and in sports we’re looking for win-lose outcomes, but play along.
Consider that the person you’re persuading has got some objections, so we’re kind of looking for a win-win-lose outcome, where we win, the person we’re talking to wins, but their irrational objection loses, clearing the way for increased happiness and satisfaction.
Anyhow, back to the sports metaphor.
Supposed you saw this book called “Sure fire goal strategies, guaranteed to work against ANY opponent.”
Or how about a stock market book, with a title called “Sure fire money making methods, guaranteed to work with ANY stock in ANY market.”
Hopefully your alarm bells would be going off. Obviously, every stock is different, so is every team or every opponent you’ll likely face.
No strategy is going to be even close to perfect, one hundred percent of the time.
Otherwise, sports teams wouldn’t spend hours going over old videos of their opponents desperate to find a hole in their armor.
And even the BEST stock investors on the plan are wrong half the time.
Clearly, your experience is by far, the BEST teacher you’ll ever have. Sure, techniques and patterns are a good start, but nothing will substitute for experience.
But when you combine consistent experience with a consistent upgrading or reviewing of your skills, it’s pretty hard NOT to consistently get better and better, no matter WHAT you’re doing.
One of the secrets of persuasion is you don’t necessarily need to be always trying to persuade people to do things. Since one of the LARGEST parts of ANY persuasion (whether it be dating, job hunting or running for president) is simply understanding what other people really want, all you’ve got to do is talk to people.
Find out what they want. Find out what they fear. Find out what they are trying to achieve with their lives.
Do this, and you’ll be MILES ahead of pretty much everybody else.
And when you apply patterns of persuasion to simply understanding their criteria, it will work even better.
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